A retired policeman and his henchmen brutally thrashed a 65-year-old man to death with sticks and injured five other family members after the victim objected to digging ground adjacent to the boundary wall of his house.
The clash between the two groups took place in Bagha village of Deoria, police said on Friday.
According to reports, the incident took place on Thursday when Harishankar Gupta objected to his neighbour Ramayan Bari, a retired policeman, digging near his boundary wall.
Police said agitated with the objection, Bari called his henchmen and they attacked Gupta with lathis, injuring him.
Five others who tried to rescue Gupta from his attackers were also hurt, police said.
Gupta later succumbed to his injuries soon after he was admitted to hospital along with other injured persons.
Annoyed with the clash and death of a local resident, the people of the locality staged a protest on Mayel-Baratha road, disrupting traffic for hours on Thursday. They demanded immediate arrest of the culprits.
Later senior officers reached the spot and pacified the protesters by assuring stern action against the culprits.
The body was sent for post-mortem.
A police force was deployed in the village to avert any untoward incident and senior officers visited the village.
Superintendent of Police Sripati Misra said a case had been lodged against 11 people, out of which four were named and some had been arrested.
Meanwhile in Budaun, two children were killed and two others injured when a sound system installed on a tractor-trolley fell on them in Basai village, police said on Friday.
The incident took place on Thursday night when a ‘shobha yatra’ was being taken out during which the tractor-trolley rammed into a raised structure outside a house and the box fell on the children dancing before it, police said on Friday.
Four children were injured and rushed to a hospital where the doctors pronounced a 10-year-old dead, the police said, adding that when three others were sent to Bareilly for treatment, a nine-year-old succumbed to injuries.
SP (Rural) Siddhart Verma said permission was not taken for the ‘shobha yatra’ and police came to know of it only after the incident.
“Investigations are on and strict action will be taken against those found responsible for it,” he said.
In Meerut, a 21-year-old youth, Ajay, resident of Rohta Road under the TP Nagar police station, poured kerosene over his clothes and set himself ablaze to commit suicide on Thursday night.
The family members and local residents rushed to his rescue and somehow doused the fire but by then he had sustained more then 80 percent burns. Ajay was shifted to hospital where he reportedly claimed family problem over which he tried to commit suicide.
The police recorded his statement before a magistrate.
Investigations are on.